The cemetery was first established in 1719, under the British colony of the Province of Maryland, as a churchyard within the glebe of St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Rock Creek Parish. Later, the Vestry decided to expand the burial ground as a public cemetery to serve the city of Washington, D.C., which had acquired the cemetery, within its district boundaries as established in 1791, formerly, being a part of the state of Maryland, and formally established through an Act of Congress in 1840.

Other notable memorials include the Frederick Keep Monument, the Heurich Mausoleum, the Hitt Monument, the Hardon Monument, the Kauffman Monument that is known as The Seven Ages of Memory, the Sherwood Mausoleum Door, and the Thompson-Harding Monument.[4]

Peter Force (1790–1868), American politician, American lieutenant in the War of 1812, newspaper editor, archivist, and historian, who served as the twelfth mayor of Washington, D.C., and whose library of historical documents became the first major Americana collection of the Library of Congress (section B)

William Henry Holmes (1846–1933), known for scientific illustration of the American West, his role in controversy over the antiquity of humans in the Americas, and leadership at the Smithsonian Institution (section M)